Cleaving apparatus for cleaving crystals or wafers are known. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,680,213 to Reichert, 4,228,937 to Tocci, and 4,775,085 to Ishizuka et al. describe various apparatus suitable for breaking or cleaving semiconductor wafers or crystals. In particular, accurate cleaving of wafers is disclosed in PCT published patent application WO 93/04497, corresponding to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/193,188, assigned to the present applicant/assignee, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
An important application of cleaving is in preparing wafers for scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which is one method used to analyze defects of semiconductor wafers. The apparatus and methods of PCT published patent application WO 93/04497 can be successfully used to prepare wafers for SEM (and even transmission electron microscopy--TEM), but are limited to a minimum size of wafer, this size being about 40.times.13 mm, in length and width. It is desirable to have a method and apparatus for cleaving smaller crystalline segments, such as semiconductor dice, which are not readily and accurately cleaved with prior art apparatus and techniques.